Featurette: Game Of Thrones: The Artisans

Simon Brindle, the supervisor of the costume armor department, talks about the process of creating the various armor suits for the TV series.

Art: Christmas Tree of Books

Gleeson library in San Francisco made this nice Christmas tree last year. You check out more shots of the tree on Shawn Calhoun's Flickr Photostream. It makes me wish that I had a few more green books so that I could do this myself. One of these would look great in my living room.

Nothing says librophile like a Christmas Tree of Books.

Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy New Year!

Poetry: "Nicholas Was..."

Motion graphics studio 39 Degrees North needed a Christmas card, so they turned to Neil Gaiman's poem, "Nicholas Was..." from the anthology Smoke and Mirrors into a short film. The result is a brief but powerful Christmas nightmare.

You can read the original poem on the author's website.

Cover Art: Spellwright

Blacke Charlton has unveiled the French version of the cover for Spellwright, featuring a very French night-life version of Nicodemus. I especially love that French title! "Mortilège." Isn't that the greatest? The word is an amalgam of the words "sortilège" (spell) and "mort" (death). Leave it to the French to invent a sexy word for deadly magic.

This definitely beats the German version, even if artist went a bit heavy on Nicodemus' mascara, but the UK version (below) beats them both out with an atom-shared ball of runes (which makes much more sense if you've actually read the book). Charlton explains that "it provides a wonderful continuation of the theme by illustrating the magical language that drives the plot of Spellbound forward."

Make sure you check out Blake Charlton's website for more covers.